‘Ciao!’

‘Congratulazioni dottoressa!’

About every other street we turn into this is what we hear. I’m in Limone Sul Garda, a beautiful place and home to one of my old roommates from Lisbon. The day before we celebrated her graduation and seemingly the entirety of this small town knows about it.

‘Ciao dottoressa!’

Some of the people we pass on the street we’ve met the day before at the party. A huge party, hosting roughly eighty Italians who before dinner enjoy signature cocktails and an enormous spread of meats, cheeses and bread outside. Once inside everyone sits down at one of two long tables drinking home-made wine and eating spiedo and polenta. Roughly eighty Italians and us, my other roommates from Lisbon and I, having travelled from Germany, Austria, Portugal, and the Netherands, all incredibly grateful to have been invited.

Before the party we went to the graduation ceremony in Brescia. Although we can’t understand the speeches made by the professors, we fascinatedly watch all the customs and rituals involved in Italian graduations. Which include flower crowns, confetti canons, prosecco, blow up costumes and crossword puzzles and which make us all, a bit enviously, have to admit are a lot more extensive than our own. But, as the many other people present for our friend at the ceremony remind us, the most important thing is the party, and we are in for a big one.

And it was, as we are guided through Limone the next day by our graduate, who is naturally tired and hungover, I realise that being there walking around that small town where everyone knows everyone and we, by attending one party, know some, is probably the most welcomed I’ve ever felt and likely to be one of the most culturally immersive experiences I’ve ever had.

Could any of us have hoped for a better outcome of doing an Erasmus semester?

For a while since I’ve been back from Portugal I’ve been meaning to write an ode to Lisbon but I simply haven’t been able to get words on paper. Although Lisbon is a fantastic city which deserves many odes to be written to it, what really made my time there special were the people I’ve met. And hope to meet again and again, perhaps next time will be for my graduation.